Bluestockings & Orange Wellies: Welcome to the Degu Station!

[ifIwerenotanandroid]

Well, that's self-explanatory, I think.

Previously known as:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5176773-bluestocking-the-gerbical?page=1

I thought it was Aintree Iron. I thought it was perhaps from the shape of the race course, like the flatiron building in NY.

I don't have any famous people I know anecdotes. The closest is I didn't get Richard Harris's autograph because he was having a drink (in the Stagedoor next to the Palace Theatre in Manchester) and it felt rude. My friends didn't have such scruples.

Can't wait to see the finished product <excited>

OK so our next carte de sejour is ready for collection so we are off to collect it on Monday so I'll have a look at some new glazes to match the chocolate cat. Wahoo!

And get more clay.

My brushes with fame are in the scientific domain. Hopefully everyone on the feminism boards has heard of the first one, the others may be a bit more niche.

I shared an office with Dorothy Hodgkin for about 15 minutes
My boss made tea for me and Max Perutz at the same time
Went to dinner in a Cambodian restaurant with a group including Martin Karplus (before he got a Nobel prize).

I saw The Scaffold live at a students' union in the early 70s. It was a smallish room in a modern building with lots of glass and not very effective heating, and I was wearing a fake fur coat. During one routine John Gorman was pretending to be a dog and, spotting me, came over and, um, did an impression of a canine meeting another canine.

I wasn't exactly a shy girl but on this occasion I really didn't know where to put my face.

Right, it is Aintree Iron and there has been much speculation as to what that is exactly

https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1840,00.html#:~:text=The%20Aintree%20Iron%20is%20actually,little%20more%20than%20shouting%20obscenities.

Although the OP in the link couldn't even get the question right!

Wikipedia, at the time of posting, says it was the first motorised Liverpudlian taxi.

AFAIK Mike McCartney ex-McGear has never been willing to explain the words "Aintree iron".

He has said that many of the guesses and theories in various media are incorrect.

I remember the look on my mother's face when, in reply to her complaining about the 'nonsense' in pop music like the Aintree Iron, my auntie said
'Yes, but 'Mares eat oat and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy' didn't mean a lot in our day either, did it?;

I think the look on my mother's face could best be interpreted as 'Quisling! Lundy! Class traitor!'😂
Needless to say, she was my absolutely favourite auntie.

That reminds of a graffiti under a sign that said
MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD
'and little lambs eat ivy'.

Se non è vero, è ben trovato

I seem to remember my DM mildly taking the piss out of it by singing 'thank you very much for Rumplestiltskin'. And to this day I can't see one particular road sign without wanting to sing 'Mersey docks and harbour board...'

...that was a cross post with Marie, I never saw the graffiti

A sign with addition that I've seen with my own eyes. It's on a county border and says

HEREFORDSHIRE
you can

to which someone has added

but only if you say "please"

Gosh Errol, one mind in two bodies, or wha', wha'?

What would have been one of my favourite graffiti didn't exist because I never got around to doing it:

On my way to work every day I used to go past an anti-Irish graffito on a wall in Tottenham which said MICKS OUT.

I always wanted to add 'CAN I TAKE A MESSAGE?'

I can never see this without wanting to change it to Elderly pickpockets

That mug is amazing@AlisonDonut! I wish I could do pottery - I watch the Throwdown, and dream.

I haven't succumbed to the Hairy Bikers book - yet.

Your pottery plans sound wonderful, @AlisonDonut . I trust nobody but you will be allowed to use them when they are finished, for fear the people might be overwhelmed by their glory, faint and drop them?

I’m quite heavily involved in local amateur musical theatre productions, or I was pre-Covid. I brought DH into it when he married me: before that he had only done classical stuff.

There are several people in these groups who are similar to the actors in Boily’s cafe, but a few years on. They have done a variety of interesting professional work in the Arts, but now have other jobs. I feel for the many younger people coming through our groups who go off to dance college or theatre schools for a first degree or after graduating, but who, statistically, are not likely to get a successful long-term career from it.

Not the very successful theatre producer who used to play “our Gordon” and who died last year?

I used to work on this street. Apparently, nearby Janus House also has one letter obscured from time to time.

@ErrolTheDragon very impressed with your scientific brushes with fame. I've shaken Harry Kroto's hand, which doesn't mean much to most people!

Also regularly ate meals with an Olympic gold medal winning rower (before the medal, we were in halls together at Imperial).

Big claim to fame is my step-great-aunt was in EastEnders! And Noel's House Party, which we make less noise about...

My dd lives quite near there, I've not noticed the sign... maybe it's been cleaned. Shame.
Also near there is (or possibly by now, was?) another of the city's dubious 'artworks' - 'The Don', supposedly Prince Philip in his role as chancellor but much more like a dementor. It was better than the thing outside the station tbh though that's a very low bar.

The street name signs for Canal Street in Manchester apparently often have the initial letters obscured.

@ErrolTheDragon ‘The Don’ should have gone now, and there are calls for the statue outside the station to go, too.

‘The Don’‘

‘Ariadne Unwrapped.”

I thought that too. And indeed it DOESN'T make any sense ... see Guardian Notes & Queries from 2011
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1840,00.html

Oooops! Umpteen posts too late 😳 sorry all

Dorothy Hodgkin!! Hurrah!.Definitely 15 minutes of fame for you.